Like many other species of petrel, blue petrel (Halobaena caerulea) are able to return to their nest burrows at night in complete darkness. Since petrels have a well-developed olfactory system, we carried out an experiment to test whether blue petrels use olfaction to localise their nest burrows. Incubating birds were injected intranasally with a zinc sulphate solution, which reversibly impairs...

Key facets of the foraging ecology of seabirds during the inter-breeding period still remain poorly understood because of the difficulty of studying them at sea, including during the energy-demanding molting stage. Here, the extent to which three sympatric petrels (Antarctic and thin-billed prions, and blue petrel) from the subantarctic Kerguelen Islands modify their foraging ecology during mol...

The conservation status and taxonomy of the three gadfly petrels that breed in Macaronesia is still discussed partly due to the scarce information on their spatial ecology. Using geolocator and capture-mark-recapture data, we examined phenology, natal philopatry and breeding-site fidelity, year-round distribution, habitat usage and at-sea activity of the three closely-related gadfly petrels tha...

Wilson's storm petrel (Oceanites oceanicus) characteristically feeds by ' hovering' over the water surface, but its technique for this is unlike that of other flying vertebrates. The kinematics and aerodynamics of this ' hovering' flight were investigated to determine the possible sources of lift; various nonaerodynamic sources of lift were discounted. It is suggested that the storm petrel soar...

The principle of competitive exclusion postulates that ecologically-similar species are expected to partition their use of resources, leading to niche divergence. The most likely mechanisms allowing such coexistence are considered to be segregation in a horizontal, vertical or temporal dimension, or, where these overlap, a difference in trophic niche. Here, by combining information obtained fro...

We studied the mercury contamination of 13 species of seabirds breeding on Bird Island, South Georgia, in 1998. Total mercury concentrations in body feather samples of birds caught at their breeding colonies were determined. Among the species, grey-headed albatross (8933 ng g–1) and southern giant petrel (7774 ng g–1) showed the highest, and gentoo penguin (948 ng g–1) the lowest body feather m...

Modified marine surveillance radar was used to study the presence/ absence, abundance, and flight activity of four nocturnal species: Hawaiian darkrumped petrel [Pterodroma phaeopygia sandwichensis (Ridgeway)], Newell's shearwater [Puffinus auricularis newelli (Henshaw)], Band-rumped storm-petrel [Oceanodroma castro (Harcourt)), and Hawaiian hoary bat (Lasiurus cinereus semotus Sanborn & Crespo...